Hello everyone, Welcome back to the Labor Pains Project blog!
It’s hard to believe we’re already in Week 12 of this journey. This week, my research took me down a fascinating path, exploring the intricate web of stories surrounding Anansi the spider, and I found some powerful connections I want to share.
This exploration isn’t just academic curiosity; it serves two vital purposes for the Labor Pains project. Firstly, I’m keenly interested in tracing the threads – visible and invisible – that connect these foundational stories to how Black women are perceived and portrayed in our culture today. How have the archetypes, warnings, and wisdom embedded in folklore influenced the narratives we internalize and confront?
Secondly, this research is a treasure hunt! I’m actively seeking out compelling stories, powerful characters, and resonant themes within African American folklore that I can adapt and weave into the original script I’m developing for performance at the West Oakland Mural Project and Underground Railroad Education Center in June 2026.
It feels like a potent time for this work. There’s a palpable energy around reclaiming and retelling our stories, even in mainstream culture – look at the buzz surrounding Ryan Coogler’s highly anticipated film Sinners, which takes a folkloric concept into the cinematic realm. It’s a powerful reminder that these “old” stories are dynamic; they hold mirrors to our past, present, and potential futures.
My exploration started with Anansi’s origins among the Ashanti people of Ghana, West Africa. Anansi, often depicted as half-man, half-spider and sometimes called a trickster god, initially appeared in tales that were often mythic, explaining the world around us. He embodied wisdom, cunning, and the power of storytelling itself.
But Anansi didn’t stay put. Like our ancestors, his stories crossed the Atlantic during the horrors of the Middle Passage, finding new roots in the Caribbean and the American South. In these new lands, under the crushing weight of slavery and oppression, Anansi’s tales transformed. They became more than just myths; they evolved into essential moral lessons and potent survival guides. Anansi’s cleverness, his trickery, his ability to outwit those much larger and more powerful than himself, became a symbol of resistance and a source of hope.
Digging deeper, I spent time with Sharon Barcan Elswit’s Caribbean Story Finder, which compiles Anansi tales from various islands. What struck me in this collection was how often Anansi is shown outsmarting everyone around him – friends, family, authorities – often for self-indulgent reasons, like getting more food or acquiring riches. This is the Anansi I remember hearing about growing up. Reflecting on it now, I realize those stories often carried subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) warnings about my own behavior, or lessons about how I was expected to navigate the world. It’s funny to think about it now: Anansi was always instructing me, I didn’t even know it.
This realization becomes even more potent when I consider the specific context of the American South, where these stories also spread. This was happening precisely when American lawmakers were busy constructing the very definitions of “White” and “Black,” “man” and “woman,” not just as identities, but as legal categories designed to create and enforce a strict social and political hierarchy. This system, from its inception, intentionally placed Black women at the very bottom in the eyes of the law – because, as the thinking goes, you can’t have a top without a bottom.
Considering this historical backdrop, it feels entirely plausible that as these laws were being forged, Anansi stories were circulating as more than just folktales. They likely served as shared inspiration and instruction – blueprints for survival, teaching valuable lessons in wit and strategy within a hostile environment.
And this is where the connection that truly excites me for the Labor Pains Project comes in: the comparison between Anansi’s attributes and the ways Black women are often perceived and navigate the world.
Think about Anansi’s defining traits: cleverness, resourcefulness, wit, the ability to turn disadvantage into an advantage. Don’t these echo the resilience and ingenuity so often ascribed to (and demanded of) Black women?
Consider Anansi’s physical smallness versus his massive impact. He’s just a spider, seemingly insignificant in a vast world, yet he creates profound change. This resonates deeply with how Black women, often marginalized or rendered insignificant by societal structures like capitalism and white supremacy, continuously demonstrate immense strength and act as powerful agents of transformation.
Anansi’s trickery wasn’t just mischief; it was often a necessary tool for survival against overwhelming power. This parallels the strategic intelligence and resilience Black women deploy to navigate systems not built for them.
Anansi’s legacy is complex – he’s a creator, a trickster, selfish, wise, a survivor. Exploring his stories helps me unpack the multifaceted ways Black women have historically drawn on inner resources to endure, resist, and reshape their realities.
This research continues to shape the Labor Pains project, adding layers to our exploration of generational narratives and resilience. I’m excited to see where these threads lead next.
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Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back next week with more updates!
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